Abstracts of 300 words with full contact details should be sent as soon as
possible but no later than 15th December 2014 toironbridge@contacts.bham.ac.uk

Trans-Atlantic dialogues on cultural heritage began as early as the voyages
of Leif Ericson and Christopher Columbus and continue through the present
day. Each side of the Atlantic offers its own geographical and historical
specificities expressed and projected through material and immaterial
heritage. However, in geopolitical terms and through everyday mobilities,
people, objects and ideas flow backward and forward across the ocean, each
shaping the heritage of the other, for better or worse, and each shaping the
meanings and values that heritage conveys.…

This project explores the contribution of consumer artifacts to the imagination and construction of modern US identity and cosmopolitan, global citizenship. We undertake fieldwork in our living room (Riggins 1994), offering a critical visual and cultural analysis to show how peripheral objects reveal often hidden pedagogical aspects of consumer culture. The intersections of identity and material culture emerge, in this case, via vintage vinyl record albums in a music genre specifically constructed for creating world-aware listeners and prepared adventurers –the travel record. Interestingly, these albums re-circulate today as retro classics, precursors of television adventure travel and exotic food shows, and are collected for their value as windows into bygone eras.…